Day 169–176 8th - 15th Sept; Coral Bay

Had a leisurely pack up today as there is only a short 145 km drive from Exmouth to Coral Bay. We were ready to leave by 9.30 a.m., so once again we idled out of the caravan park and down into town for a few last minute grocery items and the regulation coffees for the trip. I was still conscious of the Millennium Pajero’s radiator, so we took it pretty easy on the way. This being the case the temp gauge still kept creeping up the dial at times. Anyway we made it to Coral Bay intact and secured a spot at the Bayview C.P. for 5 nights. Coral Bay is a very relaxing place, with one pub, two caravan parks, directly opposite the beach, a set of shops within a “plaza” type set up which contains a newsagent, bakery / café, small supermarket, gift shop and some tour booking shops. There are also a couple of eatery / restaurants attached to each of the caravan parks and a petrol station.
The place is set up so that if you wish to take a tour on to the reef, you can do so. If you want to take an organized fishing trip this is also possible. Quad bike tours were available as well. You could also access parts of the beach in your vehicle if you wished. The other option was simply to sit back and relax on the beach in the bay, that is opposite the caravan park, where you could also step off the beach and snorkel over the coral for which this area of W.A. is famous!!! What a choice! I was suffering, at this stage from “choice stress”. I didn’t know whether to relax a “little bit”, or relax “a whole lot”!!!!! We ended up choosing to relax a whole lot. In fact we enjoyed relaxing so much that we decided to extend our stay for another 2 nights just to round out our visit to a full week. We also figured that by the time we had finished at Coral Bay, it would be time to “seriously” push on for home. This would give us approximately 17 days to do this and so we decided to make the most of our “last hurrah” in the sunshine before crossing back down over the Tropic Of Capricorn and in to the cooler weather of the south. Our visit to Coral Bay also represented the last “item” that we had on our “to do” list for this trip and so after its completion we had no real plans. Any places we got to see after this were a bonus for all of us We all had snorkeling gear to use whilst at Coral Bay and every one enjoyed the opportunity to do so. Jasmine took to the snorkeling caper very well and was very adept at it, especially in the shallows, where she would use her hands in the sand to pull herself along through the water. Daisy was a bit more spooked by what she saw under the water and also found the goggles a little unsettling and uncomfortable. Liv and Rube were also keen, although they were both a bit “scaredy” when they didn’t have their “Daddy” with them in the water. Both of them seemed to have a phobia about stingrays and thought that they would become the victims of another Steve Irwin type attack!!! Ahhhh girls!!!! Andy, well she was just completely happy to sit on the beach, soak up the sun, read her book and make the most of her last few weeks of not having to face the realities of “normal home life”, if there is such a thing. We both could not think of a better place in which to attempt to do it.